Family Values in Business

Listen to François de Gaspé Beaubien explain the importance of familiarizing the next generation with the history and values of the family business. Lasting family values are essential in guiding the future direction of the family business, particularly in deciding whether to pursue certain opportunities. A family business with a common vision and shared values will be successful in growing the business while maintaining these initial founder values.

I’ve been very lucky in the sense that I’ve got great parents, awesome parents and we’re the 14th generation in business, so this has been…you know, George Santayana, a great historian, said, I’m paraphrasing, but those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. The good news with my father is that he shared the history with us, so we have four – I mean, 13 generations ahead of us. So we had the opportunity to potentially acquire PlayBoy Magazine, cause we were in the publishing business, obviously, and it was having financial difficulties at the time, and my brother and I looked at each other and we started to laugh and kid around with it, but we didn’t even bring it back to the table, not that we would anyway, but the point being is that there are certain values in the family that it just doesn’t even make sense to even bring it up. It’s nice when the world around you is rather chaotic to have a base which is solid, where your values are solid, where you know where you stand and it’s a harbour, it’s a safe harbour. It’s interesting, I mean we, we were the three of us co-owners of the business, and my brother and sister are investors in my business, but the ownership is really what drives the values in an organization, cause you hire the managers that are like you, you put those values in place.